13 Signs Your Body Is Producing Too Much Estrogen

We at Bustle love giving you tips for how to tap into your sexual potential and troubleshoot when things aren’t going your way in the bedroom. But what about finding solutions to those stressful sexual health situations that inevitably crop up when you’re getting down? Emma Kaywin, a Brooklyn-based sexual health writer and activist, is here to calm your nerves and answer your questions. No gender, sexual orientation, or question is off limits, and all questions will remain anonymous. This week’s topic: signs your body is producing too much estrogen.

Q: I’ve been experiencing some weird symptoms. I recently noticed that I was gaining weight, which is unusual for me. And my brain is feeling fuzzy, like I can’t concentrate that well. I’m also getting really bad PMS, when I never used to before. I called up my mom’s best friend, who’s a doctor, and she said that I’d have to get tested but it sounds like it could be that I have too much estrogen. How is that possible? Is it something I can fix?

If your estrogen levels are high compared to your other hormones, that’s often called estrogen dominance — because that one hormone is dominating the others. In particular, it’s high relative to the hormone progesterone, the other hormone that helps orchestrate your menstrual cycle. (Note: I’m going to limit this article to high estrogen in folks with female reproductive systems, but high estrogen can cause difficulties in people with male reproductive systems too. The symptoms are different and there isn’t enough space to go into them here.)

So how do you know if your doctor should be monitoring your estrogen levels? Let’s look at the ways your body might be tipping you off that its estrogen cup overfloweth.

3. Your Breasts Are Fibrocystic

Fibrocystic breast changes are when the quality of your breast tissue changes, becoming more lumpy or rope-like. Your breasts may also be painful or tender to the touch (usually on the top or side of your breast). This happens because of high estrogen and low progesterone levels — aka estrogen dominance. Specifically, this balance (or rather unbalance) of hormones causes the connective breast tissue to grow more than usual, creating the ropey or bumpy quality of tissue we call fibrocystic.

5. You Period Is Heavier Than Usual

Also good to know is that high estrogen levels can cause your period to be heavier. That’s because this hormone is responsible for thickening the lining of your uterus — so if you have more of it, your lining will be more, um, plentiful.

6. You Have Mood Swings

Estrogen doesn’t just impact your period — it is also very important for your emotions and mental state. To illustrate this point, consider the monthly mood rollercoaster that is your menstrual cycle. All those changes and swings are because of what your hormone levels are doing.

If you have high levels of estrogen, your mood is likely to tend toward anxiety, panic attacks, and depression. One doctor specifically calls the feeling lots of people with high estrogen get “agitated depression,” because people with elevated estrogen often experience a mix of anxiety and depression at the same time.

7. Your Sex Drive Is Lower Than Usual

You may have heard that your sex drive can diminish when your estrogen is lower, like when you start going through menopause. However, many people with high levels of estrogen also notice that their sex drive is diminished. There still isn’t much research on the subject, unfortunately.

12. It’s Hard For You To Sleep

Estrogen is an exciting hormone — it gets your body hyped. If you have a lot of it, it’s going to be hard to sleep. Progesterone, in contrast, is the hormone that helps you chill out. So if you notice that you’re having a hard time winding down, estrogen dominance could be the culprit.

13. You’re Exhausted

This stems directly from the item above. If you’re not sleeping, it would make sense that you’re going to feel more fatigued than you usually do. Lots of things make us tired, particularly in this face-paced world we’re living in, so exhaustion could be because of a long list of things. But if you’re noticing that you’re tired more often than usual AND you have some of the other symptoms on this list, that could indicate that you have high estrogen.

To know if your estrogen levels are too high, you have to go to your doctor to get tested — probably more than once, so your doctor can monitor trends in how your levels rise and fall across your cycle. A single number isn’t going to cut it because the normal amount of estrogen someone has in their body is always fluctuating. She may put you on hormone replacement therapy so you can get back in balance and start feeling better.